Firefly Music Festival ready to rock Dover

From left, Firefly Music Festival attendees Rhonda Webb, Danny Reardon and Shawn White, all of Cleveland, Ohio, Dave Butler and Amy Coyle of Baltimore, and Buddy Reardon of Cleveland have an impromptu jam session at their campsite at The Woodlands Wednesday evening. (Delaware State News photo by Dave Chambers)

DOVER — At least for this weekend, Dover will be the largest city in the state.

The campgrounds at The Woodlands were active Wednesday evening with campers starting to arrive in Dover for this weekend’s Firefly Music Festival.

“It’s grown exponentially every year. It’s crazy that only four years ago we kicked this thing off,” said festival director Greg Bostrom of Chicago-based Red Frog Events.

“It’s year four; I’m excited to continue to improve the event,” he added. “I’m excited to continue to grow the experience that we’ve put together and I’m excited for more and more people to be involved.”

“I’m certainly excited for the line-up. I think it’s one of my favorite lineups that we’ve had.”

When the Firefly Music Festival kicks off this evening when gates open at 5 p.m., 16 acts are set to take the stage starting at 5:30 p.m., including the Dover-based hip-hop group Cypher Clique.

In the three days that follow, more than 100 groups are set to play across seven stages on the sprawling Woodlands at Dover International Speedway.

The lineup includes headliners Paul McCartney, The Killers and Kings of Leon.

When it comes to Mr. McCartney, it’s hard to think of anyone who embodies the title “living legend” more, Mr. Bostrom said.

Mr. McCartney is set to play at least two and a half hours — a first for the festival — beginning at 10 p.m. Friday.

“I think the biggest thing for Paul McCartney is that if Firefly is a good play for Paul McCartney to look at, any artist

Firefly Music Festival Director Greg Bostrom is excited to see the growth of his festival in its fourth year. (Special to the Delaware State News photo by Gary Emeigh)

in the world should consider Firefly as a great opportunity for them as well,” Mr. Bostrom said.

“… I think everyone on site has grown up with a lot of Beatles songs and Wings songs and Paul McCartney songs,” he added. “It’s going to be hard to find someone on site who doesn’t know, five, six, seven of his songs.”

As the Firefly Music Festival grows, Mr. Bostrom said organizers will continue to assess the demand and “take it as it comes.”

“We’ll let the situation dictate what happens with the event. We’re certainly open to doing more than one weekend.

As we showed with Big Barrel, we’re open to doing different genres and formats.”

“Something we’re always going to look at is the individual experience and we never want it to feel different than it does now,” Mr. Bostrom added. “We don’t want it to feel more crowded than it does now. We’re going to be very conscious about not overcrowding the festival.”

A few days after campers check out at Firefly, a new festival from the same promoters will arrive in Dover — Big Barrel County Music Festival. Organizers last week predicted attendance numbers to reach 35,000 there.

Together, the events could generate $90 million to $100 million in economic impact, organizers said.

Although Firefly is sold out, organizers announced a new partnership with StubHub this year to make it “the official secondary marketplace to purchase four-day passes.”

Firefly fan Chris Harris of Smyrna topples the wooden tower during he and his fellow music festival campers’ game of Giant Jenga.

StubHub will also be the presenting sponsor of Firefly’s acoustic stage and café, “The Coffee House.”

Among other changes, organizers added two new stages this year — the Pavilion Stage and the Treehouse Stage.

“We learn every year, we listen to the fans, we listen to the things that they want us to continue to do, and change,” Mr. Bostrom said.

“I’m just excited that we had the opportunity to change a lot of those things that we came in and wanted to do.”

The Arcade, a popular attraction, also got an upgrade. Now it’s “The Beercade.” Mr. Bostrom said organizers are “taking a concept that worked well for them and “continuing to invest in the idea, continuing to improve it.”

“I think you’ll see a lot of that with Firefly this year,” Mr. Bostrom said.

Firefly will also make its network debut this year on AXS TV, which is available on Verizon FIOS, DISH Network and Direct TV.

It is not available on Comcast in Kent and Sussex counties.

AXS will show select sets from artists throughout the weekend. Mr. McCartney’s show will not be broadcast.

Related

Related

Newsletter

Subscribe to the Delaware State News daily email newsletter

Delaware State News Daily Headlines

Comments

You are encouraged to leave relevant comments but engaging in personal attacks, threats, online bullying or commercial spam will not be allowed. All comments should remain within the bounds of fair play and civility. (You can disagree with others courteously, without being disagreeable.) Feel free to express yourself but keep an open mind toward finding value in what others say. To report abuse or spam, click the X in the upper right corner of the comment box.

advertisement

Print Edition

The Delaware State News is published seven days a week. You can find it in retail outlets throughout downstate Delaware, or subscribe to our print newspaper or our e-newspaper, a digital replica of the print edition.